International Automotive Components, other rivals help carpet maker after flood

After heavy rains and flooding last month knocked out an auto supplier’s carpeting plant in Bloomsburg, Pa., General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC were poised to lose significant production.

But the disruption could have been even worse if the supplier’s competitors — including Southfield-based International Automotive Components — hadn’t come to the rescue.

The Pennsylvania plant, owned by Autoneum Holding AG of Switzerland — formerly Rieter Automotive Systems — is near the Susquehanna River. The factory had survived a 2006 storm unscathed. But Tropical Storm Lee, which hit the region right after Hurricane Irene, raised floodwaters to record levels.

With the aid of forecasts, the company had 72 hours’ notice to prepare for the flood, said John Lenga, CFO of Autoneum’s U.S. operations. Employees moved the plant’s inventory across the street to a warehouse that was on higher ground.

To keep everything as dry as possible, they also put equipment up on blocks and materials on storage racks. But when the flood finally hit, it knocked some of the racks down, dumped sewage and silt into the building and left the plant floor under 5 feet of water.

The company evacuated the building Sept. 7 and was unable to re-enter it until Sept. 11. Employees started clearing out the mess, but it was painstaking work.

The machinery had to be cleaned and reset, a task that took days to complete. Four days after they re-entered the plant, workers began to relaunch production, but it wasn’t enough to meet the needs of the automakers.

“Our customers have a huge appetite” for carpeting, Lenga said. “There was limited capacity, and we were trying to secure as much material as we could for our customers.”

After surveying the damage, Autoneum asked competitors for help. Dorsett Industries, Lyle Industries Inc. and others agreed to produce some additional carpeting for their rival.

But there was a problem: Those companies could not replicate all the necessary manufacturing functions — tufting, dyeing and extruding — for production of the raw carpeting before it was converted into a finished product.

International Automotive Components, an interior trim supplier, could handle those production steps. But the extra workload forced that company to run its carpet factories around the clock.

The bottom line? Autoneum’s competitors picked up enough work to prevent a disastrous disruption. Lenga said the flood had the potential to knock out production of 100,000 vehicles in the first week alone.

The actual loss of production was relatively modest, and the automakers should be able to make up for lost production this fall.